Hong Kong Moves to Clear Out Occupy Protesters: CRT’s Live Blog

Police in Hong Kong have begun to clear out pro-democracy protest camps occupying key stretches of road outside government headquarters in Admiralty and in the busy shopping district of Mong Kok. The effort comes after Hong Kong courts extended injunctions against blocking roads at the sites. See real-time updates from our reporters on the scene below:

[NOTE: The live blog will resume on Thursday when authorities move to enforce an injunction in Mong Kok.]

Police get help from protesters

Protesters give a helping hand to the bailiffs who arrived Tuesday morning to clear one portion of the main protest zone in Admiralty on Tuesday.

Student protesters leading the demonstration have urged followers not to fight the clearing, which was concentrated on the area outside a major commercial tower that has been blocked for weeks by tents and barricades.

By Mia Lamar

10:36 pm

Hong Kong leader says protesters have been breaking law

Hong Kong’s chief executive Leung Chun-ying says that there is no point for protesters to resist the court order. “I think it is abundantly clear by now that the occupiers are and have been breaching the law of Hong Kong,” Mr. Leung said at a media session this morning. “Hong Kong is a law-abiding society and the rest of Hong Kong expect the occupiers, like everyone else in Hong Kong, to follow the law.”

By Jacky Wong

10:47 pm

Protesters get ready to move tents.

Calvin Chau, a 19-year-old member of the Scholarism student protest group joins others in Admiralty in preparing to move the tents they have slept in for weeks. So far the scene is pretty calm here.

By Mia Lama

11:00 pm

Clearing of Hong Kong protest zone by Citic Tower unfolding peacefully. Some students remove barriers on their own. pic.twitter.com/Cm0qzuzn1S

Clearance done, for now

The clearing appears to be done and Joshua Wong’s Scholarism student group is holding onto its tents for now.

“I think police will not have any further action today but we are not sure if they will clear barricades tomorrow,” said 22-year old Gary Fong, a member of the lead protest organizer, the Hong Kong Federation of Students.

Fong said the group doesn’t have any plan to regain areas that have been reopened and is instead putting focus on “how to re-promote our ideas in different areas of Hong Kong.”

By Mia Lamar

11:42 pm

Joshua Wong confronts bailiffs

The scene here briefly gets heated as 18-year-old Scholarism leader Joshua Wong commands a megaphone and demands to know why bailiffs are trying to clear more of the site than the protesters expected.

Mr. Wong later tells WSJ that protesters “have reached the requirement of the court judgement” with the areas they have helped reopen so far Tuesday. Wong added that reopening the entire road beside Hong Kong’s legislative headquarters–including the spot where Wong’s group is camped out–is “quite unnecessary.”

By Mia Lamar

11:55 pm

Pro-democracy law maker: Gov't hiding behind courts

Fiona Law/The Wall Street Journal

Pro-democracy lawmaker Lee Cheuk-yan, surrounded by a scrum of media, says the protesters had agreed to give up the area in front of the Citic Tower and that it’s clear the protesters didn’t want violence. “What happened this morning reflects the government’s unwillingness to talk to students. The government is only hiding behind court injunctions to clear protest sites,” he said. “Protesters were cooperative with bailiffs as we were ready to give up this area to avoid violence. Bailiffs and Citic staff should explain why they want to cross the line and clear more areas.”

By Ramy Inocencio and Fiona Law

12:11 am

Occupy exceeds Tiananmen

Whether or not Hong Kong authorities finish clearing the Occupy sites this week, the protests already lasted longer than the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tianamen Square.

The Tiananmen protests, which began following the death of reformist leader Hu Yaobang on April 17 and ended in the bloody military crackdown on June 4, lasted a total of 48 days.

The Hong Kong protests, which began in earnest when students breached security barriers in front of the Hong Kong government complex on Sept. 26, have been going on for 53 days and counting.

By Jacky Wong

1:56 am

Clearance wraps up

After lunch, bailiffs and protesters return to finish clearing out the area around the Citic Tower area in admiralty. The last of protesters’ belongings have been cleared near the entrance to the building.

Scholarism’s Joshua Wong and HKFS member Tommy Cheung assisted the protesters in moving tents and other objects like stools and banners from the area.

That looks like it ... for now

The area where Joshua Wong’s Scholarism group is camped out by the Citic Tower car park is untouched for now. A lawyer for Citic told Mr. Wong that whether they clear it another time “depends on traffic.”

Bailiffs are shaking hands and filing out of the building. That looks like the end of the day’s action.

With the bailiffs filing onto buses and leaving the protest site around Citic Tower, attention turns to what the next clearance steps will be. The injunction for the Mong Kok area, to be enforced on Thursday, was published in local newspapers today. Another injunction for the rest of the much larger Admiralty site is still being heard in court.

Today’s clearance helped the government achieve the goal of shrinking the protest site without resulting in ugly scenes of confrontation between police and protesters, unlike in previous occasions in Mong Kok when attempts by police or anti-Occupy people to dismantle barriers have led to physical tussles. Having the bailiffs, rather than police, take the lead in clearing barriers might have helped keep things civil, but the real test will come Thursday when authorities go back to Mong Kok.